PSA: Avoid this GameCrazy training video

... and she did it with a straight face the whole way through. Now that is talent.

I disagree Adam, I feel she did get the right system. Tho he didn't mention it as a reason, I think the reason he didn't suggest a X-box was because her son was 12. At some point Mom or Son are going to want to expand his gaming library, and there are a lot more titles that Mom might approve of on the PS2 than on the X-Box. My sister was 12 when she got her X-box (I wasn't living at home at the time.) and her gaming selection is so slim because the X-box just doesn't have the games she wants to play. I think the only reason she got it was because it was what all the other kids had.

@19

Maybe the only dragon games he played before were Panzar Dragoon games.

someone find me a training video that does not suck, then mabey i will agree with the people that choose not to shop at gamecrazy because of this. but until them gamecrazy will be getting my money for all my video game needs, beacuse they know what there doing.

"I'd definitely recommend the Sony Playstation 2 ... will have the best online system, and you can tap into it down the line if you decide to go that route."

Freaking hilarious, in retrospect. The best moment of the whole clip.

I lied. The best quote from the whole piece is "...and Gayle offers it up, right here."

Zelda told me she was a triflin' hizzo, but I didn't realize.

Saw this yesterday. It took me a few minutes to discover Zelda whats-her-face was just pissing around. all part of the show, to give a talking point amongst new employees perhaps? it would certainly be a great ice breaker.

purely a cultural view now. in that the "Soccor mom" or however you spell it, was nothing short of annoying with her voice alone. the worker who looked like a pitbull and the girl who looked like a tramp, if I saw them in a shop I'd run a mile. looks like you guys have shops that run tournaments too? if only we were so lucky. theres nothing like that in England. nobody cares about gaming that much.
pay for a store card? pah. Game cards are free, god knows if GameStation have cards. I'd love to set up a really decent game store.

the guy selling the PS2 trying to flog all those accessories was nothing short of a joke, surely? "here take this PS2 with everything we have back here, oh no you could do with a 360 WiFi adapter, it may come in useful down the line"

Gotta love those dragon games!

Did anyone else notice the way they call customers "guests". Brilliant marketing stretegy, i feel just like one of the game crazy family!

"37. LMAO LOL I CANT Believe it this is filmed at the gamecrazy by my house those loser, its one in Chicago on the Nortwest side 2930 N Central Ave Chicago IL to be exact LOL I Found This Funnier Knopwing Every part of this place even the back and erverything

Posted at 9:49PM on Aug 7th 2006 by Coco "

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which is weird... because totally LOL OMG the credits don't seem to agree with you. at all.

in fact they spell out in actual words were it was filmed. King City, Oregon... unless there is a mysterious King City, Illinois that oddly no one but you knows about. and that for some weird reason is spelled "c-h-i-c-a-g-o".

in other news... basically very chain video game store i have been in looks exactly the freaking same. no matter where in (or out of) the country it happens to be located.

so no. no it isn't in fact the one "on the Nortwest side 2930 N Central Ave Chicago IL to be exact"... LOL. OMG.

@Jenk

Actually, Target and Toys "R" Us both do the same thing. Hahahaha...it's funny to hear someone slip up by calling a guest a customer, then hearing somebody else correcting them in a get-it-right-or-die tone.

Actually, i think its a good training video. Fun, instructive, and shows some of the basics about selling.
If you work in retailing, you know it.

The sad thing is...the big shots at the company actually think that by doing a video like this, they are "in" with the "hip" crowd. When in fact, at 25, I take this video to be rather insulting. Basically its saying that if you play video games, you must drive a riced-out Honda, wear upside-down and backwards golf visors, and consider B-Rad from Malibu's Most Wanted your hero. I have invested $0 into Game Crazy...and I will NEVER do so after seeing this video. Sure, its meant to be funny..but instead, it winds up being the joke that nobody laughed at. If you're going to stereotype a gamer, you could have at LEAST made the video swayed towards the more technologically-inclined (for the CEO of Game Crazy who's dad put him in the position he's in, those "big words" mean intelligent...or smart...and I wouldn't be shocked if you didn't know what either of those mean either) group.

One could use this video as evidence to defend the video game industry in court, however. How exactly can you blame the ESRB for anything when the parent walks into the game store saying, "I want to buy a game for my kid...System? Oh...well I'm an extremely uninformed "parent" who buys my kid whatever they want to shut them up...so...I dunno if he has one, but I know he wants this "dragon game" [jeez] so just give me whatever it takes." Sadly, as an ex-employee of Gamestop (don't shop there...they don't refurbish jacksh!t..but they'll charge you a refurbish fee anyway), this scenario happens all too often. But here I'm probably preaching to the choir, as anyone reading this site probably already knows all that so I won't get into it further.

Bottom line: Stupid video, stupid company, stupid people. I've suffered through some seriously drab and stupid training videos...I wouldn't suffer through that one. Better to be unemployed. Heck, I can probably dig up enough money from under the cushions on my couch to make up for what they'd pay me for a week to work there anyway.

And to whoever said that people in the retail industry don't get enough respect: You're right in most cases. The pay sucks, the people you deal with suck, and the only way you'll ever stay at a position like that is if you love your job. I, for one, will never work retail again. I do owe the industry for causing me to go through college and attain a better position though. The first day I ran a register, I knew....it was just not my thing.

You were right; I should have avoided the video, but since you told me to avoid it, I just had to click on it, which resulted in me involuntarily making a face then turning it off before it could taint me--kind of like when channel surfing goes through G4.

I'm glad to know there are other companies with ridiculously stupid training videos.

I'm with Fry's Electronics, and their training video is as bad, if not worse.
One of the videos has all of the situations set up as SNL sketch parodies (including the likes of Wayne's World and the Spartan Cheerleaders, for example). They're all terrible beyond belief.

Why do companies make such dumb videos? They seem so condencending.

I want to get hired there just so i can slap the manager for making me watch that.

oh dear god.

I liked the 'Croft', 'Payne' and 'Zelda' thing. Oblique references make me feel special.

I found the announcers annoying and the video terribly heavy-handed, and the sales techniques explain why I hate most chain game stores... The whole 'we'll set you up with this this and this' during the PS2 bit made me go 'WTF'... No one in their right mind would be like 'dur, okay! My income is yours for the taking!'

Zelda Scott will forever be my hero. She's an inspiration to us female white gangstahs from the upper-class... Keep it real, girlfriend.

All in all, it's not a terrible video, but it isn't right up there with joy and happy unicorns frolicking in a meadow with rainbows and chocolate sunshine.

Or whatever.

@59 & 61: I work at a Target where, as 61 said, we do that whole "guest" instead of customer thing. At one level, it definitely is a kind of vocabulary brainwashing, but more for the employee than to give the customer warm fuzzies.

Ultimately, I think the real decision stems from the fact that "guest" is a single, curt syllable, while "cus-to-mer" streches out over three. At Target, where we're on our walkies 24/7, that makes a difference.

I caught this the other day on Salon.com. The funny thing about it (eye-gouging, head bashing aside) is that my metro area (Portland, Or.) houses the corporate headquarters (Wilsonville, Or.) of Game Crazy. Or, at least, they used to. I think Movie Gallery owns them now, so I'm not sure if Game Crazy is it's own separate entity or not. Anyway, point is that they're all over the place here and by far they're my favorite video game store chain. They give away free video rentals with system purchases. The one truism in that video that wasn't focused on enough is that they probably DO sell more games by establishing relationships with customers. In other words, where I live the men and women who work at the stores generally get to know you, enjoy chatting and eventually end up knowing what systems you own, what kind of games you like, etc. They're far different from GameStop, EBGames, etc. It's not just a sales job, either. Genuinely good people work at Game Crazy here.

So this video is even more horrifying viewed through that prism. Because the audience this video is playing too is an audience they apparently think is really stupid, embarrasingly so. Crass in what tactics they'll go to to get sales. It's just horrible. I've done my share of jobs that required training videos in my younger days. And this is the worst one I've ever seen. Worse than Burger King or Dominos or Little Caesars or any of the places I worked. It's awful in how stupid it *expects* its employees to be and how little it cares for its customers.

One time I was at Game Crazy here in Portland and I was thinking of pre-ordering a game. The girl behind the counter said "If you pre-order the game and actually pick it up I get a dollar" then proceeded to mock that awesome incentive. She got it. She didn't push it on me. THAT is what I expect when I go to Game Crazy. People who, yeah, have to do their job, but who at the end of the day play games too and thus don't shove things on you that don't want and that they know you know they're being forced to peddle. I appreciate that about the employees I've encountered. This video is speaking to a much different audience.